It's sort of hard to put what I like about this review into words. To try to explain: I tend to look at "experience" games as a waste of time. I've read really eloquent reviews about them (in particular, the recent ones for whatever that game was where you travel through a long desert/mountain/whatever path and can meet other gamers' characters along the way), but never have been sold one bit as to why I should look at them as worth my time. I think you might have actually done this, as I'm at least somewhat curious and intrigued by aspects in this title. I'd particularly point out the two paragraphs before the concluding one as great. The hints to a a story, the ambient coldness when you're not burning stuff and how the game is both comforting and unsettling at the same time -- all this works together to get my interest to a level much higher than a simple "uh, so all you do is burn stuff…until you're done?" reaction.

The whole "beginning with a function of multiplayer" threw me for a loop. I was like "Unlockable Loadouts? WTF?" before figuring out what you were talking about a couple paragraphs later. Chalk that off to my general apathy towards the multiplayer shooter scene. But when you get into details of things like the campaign, my interest picked up, as you did a great job of comparing the job 343 did with what Bungie did in the past. That turned this into a very vivid and enthralling look at not just this game, but at the evolution of the series over time. A very good review.

First: A Typo. Unless the main adversary is really is "Bower", who I'd guess to be the bastard child of Bowser and SMB RPG minor villain Bowyer (the one who'd randomly lock one of your commands so you couldn't attack, use magic or use items for a few turns). But I'm guessing it really is Bowser. Now that this bit of ugliness is behind us, I will say I really liked this review…perhaps for a reason you might not be suspecting. I've long been a real complainer about companies using new systems to regurgitate old ideas. Like how with the GameBoy Advance, instead of coming up with new games, Square busied themselves by re-re-re-re-re-re-releasing multiple Final Fantasy titles with a couple extra post-game bonus dungeons. "Wow! I can play the exact same game again! Plus 50 more hours of grinding so I can beat the new version of Omega!" Meh… The big strength here is that you give a very professional and detailed explanation of this going on and how it can legitimately bother players. The game might be solid and very good, but the points you made about things like how a bunch of things were under-implemented and seemed only to be in the game so they could be in the game resonated very strongly with me.

There were only six reviews this week, but they all were placement-worthy. To sum up the others, Pick's Halo 4 was a very informative piece that probably got hurt a bit simply by how I'm not a big multiplayer gamer, so the focus on that mode was sorta dullsville for me. I did love the detailed nature, though. Reading it after Suskie's, I found it to be a good companion piece that fills in a few blanks or gives extra details on things I might have wanted to hear more about (and the same was true vice-versa). Joe did what he could with the subject matter, but when the subject matter is simply an overly easy rip-off of a popular title, it can be hard to grab the imagination of readers…or at least readers like me who tend to rarely play puzzle games…although I may finally finish and review Ilomilo in the next couple months. I did just remember I still have it on my 360. HoldThePhone nearly placed with his review. I loved the paragraph above Rubicante's pic because it reminded me of when I speed-ran through the SNES version (rent-and-beat in 3 days!). By the time I got to the final boss, my strategy was simply to use Cecil to fight and use Rosa to keep her and him healed. I didn't have the resources to even try maintaining all five characters.

In other words, keep up the good work. This was a fun week where I enjoyed all six reviews.

Thanks for doing this topic, as always, and thanks for the placement. I like winning these sometimes, and I'm delighted that the review worked as well for you as it did. Congrats to the others who placed this week, and really, good job to all of you! It was another strong week of contention, just the way I like 'em!

"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." - John F. Kennedy on reality

"What if everything you see is more than what you see--the person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a secret door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn't? You either dismiss it, or you accept that there is much more to the world than you think. Perhaps it really is a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you'll find many unexpected things." - Shigeru Miyamoto on secret doors to another world

I plan to, holdthephone! The toughest part is deciding which ones to review next. So many options...

"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." - John F. Kennedy on reality

"What if everything you see is more than what you see--the person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a secret door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn't? You either dismiss it, or you accept that there is much more to the world than you think. Perhaps it really is a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you'll find many unexpected things." - Shigeru Miyamoto on secret doors to another world

Haha, yeah I wrote that review knowing it wouldn't be ROTW material, though I still felt something needed to be said about it. I mainly wanted to inform people on what kind of game it was so they wouldn't just buy it because the name sounds ironic and humorous. Anyway, thanks for the mention!